Visa and NetHope grant recipients illustrate the power of digital payments.

With Pathfinder International’s mHMtaani project (Swahili for “mobile health for my community”), community health workers in Kenya’s coastal region use a mobile phone application to register clients, provide health services and upload data to the cloud so program managers can monitor and analyze patient care and outcomes.

Pathfinder's Tauseef Ahmed, Country Representative in Pakistan, discusses the difficulties the country faces due to its high population.

“You can earn demographic dividend only if you invest in health (that included reproductive health and family planning), education, employment opportunities and good governance,” Dr Tauseef Ahmed of Pathfinder said, adding that governance based on merit-based decisions and accountability was the backbone of the process.

Kenya’s mobile incentive program improves the health of mothers and children, while offering secure and reliable payment to frontline health workers.

Supported by the US Agency for International Development through Pathfinder International’s APHIAplus Nairobi-Coast program, the mHMtaani project (Swahili for “mobile health for my community”) enables community health workers like Elizabeth to register clients, provide health services, and record data directly via a mobile phone.

A video provides a snapshot of Pathfinder International’s Health of People and Environment in Lake Victoria Basin project, an integrated population, health, and environment project supported by MacArthur. The project aims to reduce threats to biodiversity conservation and ecosystem degradation in the Lake Victoria Basin while increasing access to family planning and sexual and reproductive health services.

Ethiopia's Federal Ministry of Health has initiated the Reproductive, Maternal, and Neonatal Health Innovation Fund (RIF). The Fund will finance innovative projects that address demand-side barriers in reproductive, maternal, and neonatal health. Deadline for submission of Expression of Interest to the Federal Ministry of Healthwill be September 15, 2014.

A focus on family planning services and the availability of long-acting reversible contraceptive methods are part of a new program to raise the contraceptive prevalence rate and promote healthy spacing of pregnancies in Niger.

Demographic expert Dr Tauseef Ahmed, while speaking at a workshop organised by non-government organisations Subh-e-Nau and Pathfinders, said that if we fail to invest in the youth, not only they will be unskilled and uneducated but they will stay unemployed.

Pathfinder International head Dr Tauseef Ahmed said that most of the youth was now being dubbed “uneducated, unskilled, and devoid of aspirations”. He said growing population is a cross-cutting issue all over the world, he said.

As the UN continues negotiations on a new set of Sustainable Development Goals for its post-2015 development agenda, population experts are hoping reproductive health will be given significant recognition in the final line-up of the goals later this year.

“I would hope the upcoming U.N. session will highlight the need to include sexual and reproductive health and rights upfront as a core component of the Sustainable Development Goals as the Open Working Group continues to develop its proposal,” said Purnima Mane, President & CEO of Pathfinder International.

See Ethiopians—rural women, an Orthodox Priest, the First Lady of Ethiopia, and more—share why they believe family planning is key to their country’s development.

“Women build the society. They build a nation. And investing in family planning is investing in the future.”-Dr. Tewodros Bekele, Director of Maternal, Child Health & Nutrition Programs, Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health

This past weekend, national governments called for the promotion of sexual and reproductive health and rights as a part of the emerging sustainable development framework at the Commission on Population and Development.

Condoms remain some of the most effective and affordable tools for combating unintended pregnancy. But how do condoms get to people who live in some of the hardest-to-reach corners of the world?

Tanzania-based photographer Sala Lewis traveled with global health organization Pathfinder International to document the Tuungane program in Tanzania, which brings condoms from the urban center of Kigoma to the small villages around the Mahale National Park. Project staff travel to the field at least once every two weeks, delivering what ever supplies are needed — contraception, anti-malaria drugs or even a new radio.

Women, be good to one another. Ask the younger women in your life to tell you about their aspirations, and help those aspirations grow. When their voice is silenced, elevate it by speaking up yourself. Don't be afraid to tell the truth about women's lives, their power and their potential. "Feminist" isn't a four-letter word and we can't keep treating it like one. Say "yes" to opportunity and "get out of my way" to the social, economic and cultural barriers that try to hold you back.